You're hypocritical about it though. You insist that we accept *your* definition of liberty. You slam someone for showing frustration with your insistences and unwillingness to accept some moderation to your ideals.

I'm pretty sure you believe in checks and balances for government, but you clearly do not for business. Is corporate rule that appealing to you?

I do not accept the way you would dictate my liberty. I don't believe you're actually interested in the rights and liberties of others at all in fact.

This is the farcical direction Libertarianism has taken. Bowing to corporate interests. I'd rather put my interests in someone who's been elected and let them manage the checks and balances for the ones who're just interested in profit margins / share.

I believe in freedom as much as it can be obtained without stepping on the freedom of others. This is one of them, where business has decided to put an extra lock on something that I would otherwise be free to use after I've purchased it. A check and balance on that is something I welcome.

Liberty is a beautiful word and a stellar ideal. Understanding the limits of that ideal, that would be moderation. Otherwise, you taint the word. And that's what you're doing, tainting liberty by measuring it with an unbalanced scale.

You'd make a hell of a dictator.

Last I checked, you have an attempt at representative democracy, not an actuality. It's as tainted as ours when it comes to lobbyists, etc. This is exactly why business is in a much different category than freedom of speech or freedom from slavery.

How so nonsense? Aside from claiming wildly, you're not applying much logic to the debate.

Locking a phone is specifically so customers cannot take that hardware they've purchased and use it on competiting carriers. How on earth is that not anti-competitive?

I think you're so blinded by your ideals, you don't see common sense. It's become a religion to you. Zealotry.

Most of us realize that the absolutes you're preaching are an absurd utopia that cannot exist in reality. Some of us realize that in trying to achieve that sort of libertarian ideal is much more likely to end in something totalitarian instead. That's what happens when ideals are extremes.

One person's freedom and liberty often infringes on another's.

Business interest is rather vague, so let's be a little more specific and call it what it is: A business interest in reducing competition. This is about phones that are bought and paid for, either via contract or outright.

You're actually arguing for free market principles in favour of an anti-competitive practice? Seriously? You don't see the paradox in that? You actually believe that this particular behaviour reduces prices to the consumer?

On the side point, have you unlocked a phone recently? I did a few days ago and all it took was a code entered via the phone's own keypad. No extra hardware, no expertise required.

Currently, Canadian carriers are seriously gouging customers. Consumer Reports and the BBB have both written reports recently regarding the high volume of complaints toward cellular services, specifically about pricing. These are the guys you think should not incur the infinitesimal costs of unlocking phones for customers-- phones they have locked themselves to begin with.

Previously I'd say the differing network technologies were a concern. Bell & Telus operate mostly on CDMA while Rogers runs on GSM. Most of the smaller carriers operate piggybacked onto these networks, or are owned outright by these three carriers. Wind Mobile is the exception (using AWS).

More recently however, all three of the major carriers have been implementing HSDPA+ (Wikipedia link) on UMTS 850 / 1900MHz. So if you're buying a Smartphone that's a "world phone", chances are you can use it in on all of the major carriers. Google's Nexus One for instance. Right now, you can get an HTC Legend for a great non-contract price of $350 from Virgin Mobile (operated by Bell), unlock it and use it in most major cities.

Myself, I just purchased a Samsung Galaxy Spica branded for Rogers and unlocked it to use on Bell. I had to get the unlock code via eBay (and buy a Bell SIM), but I would have preferred to just get it unlocked in the first place, or unlocked by request. There have also been problems with carriers being stubborn over allowing unlocked devices (Bell is still pretty picky, but currently allowing it), so this bill is something I'd like to see passed.

These carriers may change back to different technologies when they get to 4G, but from press releases so far they've all put the brakes on LTE, etc. for now and are planning on pushing HSPDA+ to its max potential first.

Okaaaaaaay. What's the point of this article?

"Once it's installed" ...

There's no description or indication of a specific exploit that can be leveraged. In fact the entire premise doesn't require an exploit at all.

You know, once I light a match and burn my phone, it will be burnt! Good grief.

As a high-profile unlocked phone, the Nexus One has seemed to have had an effect on carriers here in Canada.

Bell, Telus and Rogers have all been friendly about just putting a SIM card into the Nexus One and using it. I don't know if it's been an official policy at these carriers or not, but previously getting an unlocked phone onto anything but prepaid has been a pain, I was often met with resistance at the stores ("Oh no, you can't do that").

Now, even with other unlocked phones, the stores have been a lot more receptive about getting you on their network.

It may not have sold in spectacular numbers and many consumers have no clue it exists, but the reps in the stores know this phone very well.

Oh good lord, how uptight does our society need to be?

It's a contradiction too, because sexualized youth seems to be perfectly acceptable as long as it's from a Mickey Mouse Club alumni that promises abstinence.
 

Excuse me for inadvertently invoking Godwin's Law on this so quickly, but when I read the title I first assumed this was some discovered historical footage of Nazi paramilitary assault troops.

I guess after Jar-Jar and the endless shovelling of Star Wars merchandise, I've kind of filtered George Lucas' franchise right out of my head. Or maybe I just wish I had.

These social network predictions were already predicted by the late Mr. Asimov. ;)

I'm considering buying a Nexus One right now and I really appreciate that Google has given us this other choice to the overly-controlled Disneyesque land of phones.

If this article's advice were followed, what exactly would distinguish Android from the other smartphone OSes? What would we need more "me too" phones for?

I do think the Android Marketplace could be better organized, but the answer isn't to copycat Apple's iTunes app store. For me, I'm tired of swimming in the sea of shovelware apps as Apple presents them, so I'd really hope that Google evolves theirs into something better.

In short, a bunch of sameness isn't what I'd like to see.

I wish there were a way to mod parent up to some sort of sticky / FAQ status.

Yes, of course any sort of geek news is going to be filled with notices of high tech product releases, etc.. It shouldn't need to be said, but apparently it did.